what is the best fixed mag low light scope

wraith

Well-Known Member
ok out the other night with a kahles helia c 8x56 scope no moon very cloudey wet and fog yet i could still count fence posts at 200yards now i would not shoot with it without a lamp but was very surprised at what i could see cant wait for the moon light nights and a goodfox call
 
The only real way for you to tell is to take a selection out and test them beside each other as the light fades. Try to read the headline on a newspaper for example and see which works best for you. My personal view is that zeiss, of the common scopes, are ahead on glass but that nickel are probably ahead of the lot but much less common or easy to get. despite that all the top names are more than good enough to get the job done. I use an s&b 8x56 and I've always decided it was unwise to shoot before the glass would limit my ability to shoot. If I had the cash for e new nickel I'd spend it on stalking and be happy that while I don't have the best glass in the world I have a scope more than good enough to shoot sika in forestry at last light.
 
Just for your interest Caorach there's a really nice nickel ir for sale in the classifieds and at very reasonable money its a 74544-Nickel-7x56-Illuminated, I have seen you mention these scopes a few times and speak highly of them though I have never used one my self but can Imagine the quality, and this ones looks really nice even though your s&b is more than up to the task it will make £300 plus and recuperate most of the cost, go on you know you want it.... and maybe you could swing it as a Christmas pressy.....:D



Oh and to answer the OP any good quality 6x42 7x50 8x56 scope perform very well in low light conditions, I own a couple of S&b 6x42's on my rimfire and foxing rifles and a zeiss diatal 7x50 on the 308 with the zeiss being ever so slightly the brightest.
 
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Just for your interest Caorach there's a really nice nickel ir for sale in the classifieds and at very reasonable money its a 74544-Nickel-7x56-Illuminated,

Thanks for the heads up but I couldn't justify spending the cash when I've got a scope that does everything I need of it. Also I know nothing about that particular model and as i understand it nickel did have a sort of bad patch going back a while so I'd want to know a lot about any scope I was looking at that wasn't in their current range. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it but just that I'd need to be sure. If it is up to their current quality then it will be a great buy for someone looking a low light scope.
 
Nickel are very easily acquired here S

i think people are always loath to buy before they have had a play and in the uk they probably don't know anyone with a nickel to let them try it out. I've had a play and so would have no problems buying nickel but it would be a big pile of cash to put into something you'd only seen recommended on the Internet. If you have the cash and want the best then I've not seen anything better, though I've never seen any of the older ones, but you'd be mad to spend the money based on what I say and that is why you see so few of them.
 
S&B 8 x 56 with 30mm tube gives brilliant low light capabilities. Have used them for years with excellent results.

Jimbo
 
understand the big tube and big lenses, but does the magnification do anything as far as brightness?
 
sorry for being thick headed but...... if you have a 1-8 x56 scope (lets just say they make one).... would it gather the same light at 1x as at 8x, or which would be better?
 
which would be better?

Once the exit pupil gets above the size of the hole in your eye that lets light in then you don't get much benefit, in terms of brightness, from having a bigger exit pupil.

Magnifying something, however, is similar to moving closer to it. So an object 80 yards away will appear as if it were 10 yards away when viewed at 8 times magnification. If you walk towards an object in low light you will soon realise that the closer you get the easier it is to see, walk from 80 yards to 10 yards from an object and you will see it a whole lot more clearly. So, there is a benefit in magnification providing that it doesn't result in a tiny exit pupil and there is no such thing as a free lunch. There is a "measure" of low light performance called "twilight factor" which takes magnification into account for this very reason but it can, on occasions, make very high magnification scopes look like great low light performers when in truth they aren't so it is far from perfect.
 
sorry for being thick headed but...... if you have a 1-8 x56 scope (lets just say they make one).... would it gather the same light at 1x as at 8x, or which would be better?
by what i was told no diffrence bud as you can onley taike in 7mm eney more light coming in is wasted your eyes cant notice the diffrence by my way of thinking your eye closes when bright light enters reducing pupil size yet at night you want your eyes to be more dilated pupils bigger to see better in my last post on which scope is better i had 2khales scopes one 7x56 one 8x56 just sold the 7x56 as to my 53year old eyes the 8x58 was brighter and clearer as the 7x56 had a smaller exit pupil it may have closed my iris up more than the 8x56 hence at night one apearsbrighter than the other may be barking up the rong tree hear but it worked for me as for your original post 1x8x56 i think the 1x would be wider and clearer than 8x simpley put the more mag the more it magnifiyes the dark good glass or not
 
as for your original post 1x8x56 i think the 1x would be wider and clearer than 8x simpley put the more mag the more it magnifiyes the dark good glass or not
The eye functions poorly in the dark and so you can see better if you get closer to an object. Imagine looking across your garden at an object say 25m away in the near dark - you can make out shapes, etc. but move to 3m away and you are more likely to see details etc. The light hasn't changed, but you are 8x closer and so can see better. 8x magnification puts you 'closer' to the object you are trying to observe and therefore in low light you are more likely to see detail rather than a dark shape, provided that there is still sufficient light coming through the scope.
 
now you broke thru...... I think:rolleyes:..... The magnification has nothing to do with the amount of light that can get in, just how good you can use the light that is there..... (??). If so, that fits a short answer I got from a guy when I asked how much difference I could expect if I went from my 6x42 to a 56mm optic... He said "about 10 minutes" and left me scratching my head.....
I guess I can stick with what I have and just buy some other toys.....

Thanks.
 
I guess I can stick with what I have and just buy some other toys.....

Don't buy toys - when you are sitting in the nursing home they'll be sod all use to you. Spend the cash on some great stalking experiences and then when you are sitting in your nursing home you'll have the memories of wonderful days on the hill. That will be worth a lot more than having a box with a fancy scope in it that was mostly a product of some marketing department rather than any actual need.

​If you have a 6X42 then go stalking with it and ask yourself what a bigger scope might do for you even if it did give you an extra 10 minutes (and I have my doubts about that) as my experience with my 8X56 is that I usually decide that the shot is unwise in terms of ability to recover the animal etc. before my scope runs out of light to allow me to shoot. I'm mostly shooting sika deer in dark commercial forestry.
 
Don't buy toys - when you are sitting in the nursing home they'll be sod all use to you. Spend the cash on some great stalking experiences and then when you are sitting in your nursing home you'll have the memories of wonderful days on the hill. That will be worth a lot more than having a box with a fancy scope in it that was mostly a product of some marketing department rather than any actual need.

​If you have a 6X42 then go stalking with it and ask yourself what a bigger scope might do for you even if it did give you an extra 10 minutes (and I have my doubts about that) as my experience with my 8X56 is that I usually decide that the shot is unwise in terms of ability to recover the animal etc. before my scope runs out of light to allow me to shoot. I'm mostly shooting sika deer in dark commercial forestry.

There ya go... That 10 minutes ain't worth a damn when you spend the rest of the night tromping around with a flashlight looking for a possibly suffering animal.. That just about seals it for me and I'm out of the scope market for this gun... Waiting on a deal to pop up on a marlin 30-30 (back to the roots) and may put a low power scope on it or ghost rings...
 
I can see just as clear and late with my old zeiss 4x32 as with my fathers new zeiss 3-12x56..sweet FA difference when waiting for a buck to show in the evening/last light. in fact, the old 4x32 is better than my late S&B 6x42 hungarian!
 
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